


Taboo

by ScienceofObsession



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Magical Realism, Podfic Available, Post Reichenbach, Tumblr Prompt, bit of drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/pseuds/ScienceofObsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Now available as a podfic <a href="https://soundcloud.com/scienceofobsession/taboo-sherlock-bbc-podfic">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Taboo

**Author's Note:**

> Now available as a podfic [here](https://soundcloud.com/scienceofobsession/taboo-sherlock-bbc-podfic).

“Do you remember his name?”

  
The question is innocent enough; it’s not unusual for names to pass away once they’re no longer uttered. The brain’s funny that way - people try so hard to remember that they don’t notice they’ve forgotten.

John closes his eyes tightly and sees those bright blue lights dancing behind his lids. Every single fibre of him burned into John’s memory in excruciating detail, and there is no piece of him that the soldier would ever not remember, not for the rest of his battled days.

He nods curtly. “Always.”

 

++

 

Names go with the dead. They’re buried and burned, thrown to the wind or sacrificed on an altar. They’re picked apart and strewn across landscapes, painted into secret places. John finds the custom inherently superficial, but even he feels the reverence that comes from keeping something private and hidden. He had folded the name away while he sat stiffly in front of that blank headstone, swallowed it whole years ago, and right then knew he’d keep it always, precious and only his.

 

++

 

His coat is in a box under John’s bed. John keeps his secret well, knows the wrongness of its existence. But he gave up the violin, his clothes, books, everything. He couldn’t let it all go, couldn’t bear the thought of not having a single physical tether to his memory. So it sits, blackened and intricate, with its sobbing stitches and cold-hearted buttons, gasping seams. A blood-red fleck on the collar. It’s his memory incarnate, and John treasures it, dead as it is.

 

++

 

There have been days when John is tempted to break the taboo. He feels those consonants, that sibilance rising in his throat, and rolls it around, wetting his lips in preparation. The thought of summoning a ghost doesn’t seem so ruinous when you’re sitting alone in the dark, hauntings of crime scenes and adrenaline and warm laughter pulling at your edges and threatening to take you apart. Whatever warnings he has heard about invoked spirits seem acceptable trades for the ability to have something precious returned to him. But he balks, unsure at just the wrong moment, and he always slumps back into resignation with a bitter sigh. His prayers remain unspoken.

 

++

 

There is a space in the flat where his name lives. John can see it lurking, shadowy and ethereal, just under the left corner of the mantelpiece. He shuffles around it, giving it space to breathe and pulse. Because something in this flat should be alive.

 

++

 

When Molly looks at him, he knows she remembers the name. It sears him somewhere deep inside to know he has to share it with her, and he’ll never meet her glance. She sees him, flayed in his jealousy, and turns her eyes to the floor. He barely has the consideration to feel grateful for it.

 

++

 

The days pass, and John remembers. He forgets phone numbers and faces and what it feels like to grin from down deep, but he remembers the name. Always his name.

 

++

 

One day, the dead man appears at his door. Scarred and burning, aglow with more life than his peaked frame can contain. There are sparks on the tips of his ears, the ends of his curls, resting in the hollow of his throat.

And there, in that moment, John lets the sound sit on his tongue, savors it before pushing it out for the first time in 31 months.

“Sherlock.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Look I actually used [a prompt](http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/42191506561/do-you-remember-his-name) to write something! 
> 
> Inspiration from [here](http://www.bartleby.com/196/57.html).
> 
>  
> 
> Originally posted [on Tumblr](http://thescienceofobsession.tumblr.com/post/42617157986/taboo).


End file.
